Moderation Questions and General Chat Thread
The last iteration of the moderation discussion thread was a complete disaster. Numerous attempts to keep it on topic failed, and it became a general discussion thread with almost no moderation related posts at all. And those that were posted were so buried in non-mod posts that it became a huge time drain on the mods to sort through them. Then, when off topic posts were deleted posters complained about that.
This led to the closing of the mod discussion thread, replaced by the post report/pm approach. This has filtered out lots of noise, but has resulted at times in the General Discussion Thread turning into a quasi-mod thread. This is not desirable, but going back to the old mod thread is also not a workable option.
Therefore, I have created this new moderation thread, but with a different purpose and ground rules than previous mod threads. The purpose of this thread is to provide a place for posters to pose questions to the mods about how policies are applied; to bring to the mods attention posts they think are inappropriate and reach the level of requiring mod action; and for mods to communicate to posters things like changes or clarifications to policies, bannings, etc.
Now let me tell you what this thread is NOT a place for. It is not for nonmoderation related posts, even if the discussion originates from a comment in in a mod related post. It is not for posters to post their opinions about other posters or whether a poster should be banned. It is not to rehash past grievances about mod decisions from months or years ago. The focus of this thread will be recent posts that require action now. Or questions about current policies and enforcement.
So basically, this is a thread to ask mods questions. Which means, pretty much that only mods should be answering those questions. If a poster asks why a particular post was deleted or allowed, only a mod can answer that. Everyone else who wants to jump in with their opinion or their mod war story needs to stay out of it. It just increases the noise to signal ratio and does nothing to answer the question.
Everyone needs to understand that this thread has very different rules than the old mod thread and any other thread. Any non-moderation post will be deleted on sight. Not moved to the appropriate thread, just deleted. So don't waste your time crafting a masterpiece post about wars or transgender issues or the presidential election and then post it in this thread. It will be gone. Also, this isnt a thread for general commentary about our mods performance. Posting "browser sucks as a mod" or any such posts that don't actually ask about a policy or request a mod action will be deleted. Everyone is entitled to their opinion about the moderation of this forum. But this thread isnt for complaining about mods. You are free to go to the ATF forum and make your concerns about modding in this forum there.
So with that intro, this thread is open for those who need to bring questions about mod policies or bring inappropriate posts to the mods attention. Again, it is NOT a thread for group discussions about other posters or for other posters to answer questions directed to mods.
We'll see how this goes. If you have what you feel is an open issue raised in the General Discussion Thread, please copy that post or otherwise reintroduce the issue here.
Thanks.
How can you define "clearly said in confidence"? In the real world, people usually indicate somehow that what is being discussed is confidential. Either by saying so or by the content of the discussion (e.g. medical info). Just because it's a one-on-one conversation is not what makes it confidential. How many times have two posters been talking about something and they are told "take it to PMs"? Are these necessarily "private"? I think more
Like with most things moderator-related, it's pretty subjective. There will be times when it's obvious, and times when it's not.
Personally, I try to err on the side of assuming PMs are meant to be private and generally won't share unless I know it's OK to do so. But when I send PMs, I am aware that not everyone feels the same way and thus try not to send anything that would cause problems for me if they were to become public. It's a subject about which people have very different feelings.
Just because back in the day, one-to-one messages on the internet were labeled "private" doesn't mean that it should be some kind of barrier to passing on the conversation.
FWIW, this isn't a "back in the day" issue - messages here are still labelled "Private Messages". That said, I agree that this doesn't mean they can never be shared under any circumstances.
Everything he posted via PM seemed fine and not special regarding KS family or whatever.
Great. That's you.
There can be all sorts of reasons someone might share something private with a stranger that they wouldn't want posted publicly. It's fine if you don't agree with that, but they don't need to justify it to you. Everyone is different. 😀
Who said there was anything wrong with it? People wanting to keep certain information private doesn't imply anything good or bad about that information.
And to be clear, I'm not weighing in on whether this particular ban was justified or not. I don't find the ban surprising given what was posted, and jbouton's history, but I'm not in a place to judge it. I'm just trying to provide a little clarity, or at least some background, regarding the sharing of private messages.
I agree with what you said. I still feel as if it’s an overreaction. Also how can one know what’s true or not about what KS says? And what if this is bait , ya know so JB posts it and gets banned?
Pretty ridiculous that people are trying to argue KS wouldn't want to keep his experiences with family mental health issues out of the public forum.
And why did Bouten feel it was appropriate to share ithe pm in its entirety? What did he prove with it?
I think he was upset about the part where KS asked about his therapist.
But as already pointed out, jbouton had already made an entire thread about how he has Tourette's Syndrome so wanted to get some kind of special treatment here.
I don't know if people with TS generally need a therapist or not, but he was definitely having trouble making himself understood here (then blaming everyone except himself for the problem).
Everything he posted via PM seemed fine and not special regarding KS family or whatever. If it was that private he wouldn’t share it with a stranger on the internet? What’s wrong with having Bi polar? I don’t get it
As pointed out repeatedly in the trans thread not so long ago, many people consider any mental illnesses to be stigmatization.
FWIW, I don't think King Spew's private message was particularly offensive given the many posts responding to jb which explicitly said something about his mental health. The very recent "don't stigmatize his mental health" post ultimately clued him in that he could use a PM as ammunition to prove that he is being unfairly attacked on these forums by a big bad mod.
If somebody has legitimate serious mental health issues, I don't think it would be nice to take shots at them belittling their condition. I personally thought that people that were replying aggressively to Lirva a few months ago, when he was clearly in serious mental distress, were way out of line. Other than being obsessive and extremely annoying, we don't really have any evidence of jb actually suffering from mental health issues, so it seems to me that he is doing the whole "throw rocks and hide under mom's skirt" thing when he whines incessantly about being a victim when at the same time he makes a dozen posts a day attacking other posters.
FWIW, I don't think King Spew's private message was particularly offensive given the many posts responding to jb which explicitly said something about his mental health. The very recent "don't stigmatize his mental health" post ultimately clued him in that he could use a PM as ammunition to prove that he is being unfairly attacked on these forums by a big bad mod.
If somebody has legitimate serious mental health issues, I don't think it wou
I don't think being an insufferable dolt with a persecution complex is a legitimate mental health issue, but I'll defer to the experts.
If only JB looked as good as CZJ in a catsuit doing yoga moves in a room full of laser beams.
If only CZJ looked as good as King Spew in a catsuit doing yoga moves in a room full of laser beams.
FWIW, this isn't a "back in the day" issue - messages here are still labelled "Private Messages".
The issue has now been thoroughly covered, but I'd like to add that original names tend to stick even if they don't accurately describe something. Podcast would be an example - iPods aren't exactly the main way to listen these days but the name endures.
where's the rule against posting private messages? like i get that it's a questionable thing to do, but i don't see any rule in the guidelines post that says you will be banned permanently if you make private messages public, or anything about pms.
I will never understand some people's insistence on knowing whether there is a specific rule for everything. There will never be a specific rule for everything. 2+2 isn't a taxonomy project.
If somebody has legitimate serious mental health issues, I don't think it would be nice to take shots at them belittling their condition.
Later, that very same paragraph....
Other than being obsessive and extremely annoying, we don't really have any evidence of jb actually suffering from mental health issues, so it seems to me that he is doing the whole "throw rocks and hide under mom's skirt" thing when he whines incessantly about being a victim when at the same time he makes a dozen posts a day attacking other posters.
Well for me it's about censorship rules, given i would like to discuss stuff that is partially censored, i'd like to know the exact boundaries because the more i can plainly state and argue about the better the debate can be.
I think you can understand that mindset specifically.
For ex i have been accused of coming very close to white supremacy after i wrote that i consider western culture objectively superior to all others in history, it's hard to be able to debate all the corollaries of that (geopoliticals, immigration-wise and so on), which is a widespread opinion among rightwing people still nowaydas and was the super-majoritarian opinion of all western countries until very recently, if that's the threshold.
Ofc i accept the threshold but until i knew that, i felt free to express my preferences for western culture.
But i think you can see that censoring a core value-system which was the main one in many countries for centuries until very recently, and still is the main one for 40 to 60 % of voters depending on the country (in the west), is kinda harsh
